Indicators: Information on the Procedure
1. Is sufficient information provided to asylum seekers on the procedures, their rights and obligations in practice? Yes With difficulty No
Is tailored information provided to unaccompanied children? Yes No The provision of information is codified in Article R.751-2 Ceseda:
“The competent service of the Prefecture must inform the foreign national who would like to request refugee or subsidiary protection, of the asylum procedure, their rights and obligations over the course of this procedure, the potential consequences of failure to meet these obligations or any refusal to cooperate with the authorities and the measures available to them to help them present their request. This information should be provided in a language they can reasonably be expected to understand.”
Information is provided in a language that the asylum seeker understands or is likely to understand.264 This information have been compiled under a general “Guide for asylum seekers in France” (guide du demandeur d’asile en France).265 The guide is supposed to be provided by the Prefecture. The 2015 Asylum Seeker’s Guide is available in French and, at the time of writing, in 18 other languages on the Ministry of the Interior website. Practices used to vary from one Prefecture to another, and many failed to provide the guide. From the point of view of stakeholders supporting asylum seekers, even though this guide is a good initiative, it appears that most of asylum seekers cannot read or do not understand the meaning of the guide.
In April 2014, OFPRA published a guide on the right of asylum for unaccompanied minors in France.266 The guide is quite comprehensive, describing the steps of the asylum procedure, the appeals and the procedure at the border. OFPRA has stated its intention to share this guide as widely as possible in Prefectures, in waiting zones at the border and with stakeholders working in children’s care. In practice, this guide is not available in all prefectures. In many regions, the prefecture agents recommend asylum seekers to download it on OFPRA’s website.
Information on the Dublin procedure
The information provided about the Dublin procedure varies greatly from one prefecture to another. In the Rhône department, when they go to the prefecture to apply for asylum, all applicants are handed, at the desks, an information leaflet on the Dublin procedure (Leaflet A)267 together with the Asylum Seeker’s Guide. If the Prefecture decides at a later stage to channel the applicant into the Dublin procedure, the applicant receives a second information leaflet on the Dublin procedure (Leaflet B).268 Since November 2014, the Prefecture has asked the applicant to sign a letter written in French and listing all the information they have been given, as requested under Article 4 of the Dublin III Regulation, and the language in which it is given.
264 Article R.741-4 Ceseda.
265 Ministry of Interior, Guide du demandeur d’asile en France, November 2015, available at: http://bit.ly/2jRKjum.
266 OFPRA, Guide de l’asile pour les mineurs isolés etrangers en France (Guide on the right to asylum for unaccompanied minors in France), 30 April 2014, available in French at: http://bit.ly/1ep99xl.
267 European Commission and Migrationsverket, Leaflet A: “I have asked for asylum in the EU – Which country will handle my claim?” 2014, available at: http://bit.ly/1PSuhgz.
268 European Commission and Migrationsverket, Leaflet B: “I am in the Dublin procedure – What does this mean?”, 2014, available at: http://bit.ly/1dBoCd2.
71 The asylum seeker knows when a take charge or a take back procedure has been initiated, due to information provided on the back of their Dublin notice, which is translated into the language of the asylum seeker. Translation is an obligation recently recalled by the Administrative Court of Appel of Bordeaux.
According to the court, the absence of translation is a violation of the fundamental guarantees which much prevail in the framework of the Dublin procedure.269 There is, however, no information about the country to which a request has been sent, nor on the criteria that have led to this decision.
Information at the border
In the waiting zones at the border, Forum réfugiés-Cosi notes a serious lack of information on the possibility of requesting admission to French territory on asylum grounds (see section on Border Procedure). When a person is arrested at the border, he or she is notified of an entry refusal, in theory with the presence of an interpreter if necessary.270 However, many stakeholders doubt that the information provided and the rights listed therein are effectively understood. For example, it is very surprising to note that those intercepted nearly all agree to renounce their right to a “clear day” notice period (“jour franc”) i.e. 24 hours during which the person cannot be returned, and tick the box confirming their request to leave as soon as possible.
In addition, as the telephone in certain waiting zones is not free of charge, contact with NGOs or even UNHCR is not easy. Several decisions by the Courts of Appeal have highlighted the irregularity of the procedure for administrative detention in a waiting zone, due to the restrictions placed on exercising the right to communicate with a lawyer or any person of one's choice.271 The fact that asylum seekers may have no financial means of purchasing a phone card is therefore a restriction on this fundamental right.
2. Access to NGOs and UNHCR
Indicators: Access to NGOs and UNHCR
1. Do asylum seekers located at the border have effective access to NGOs and UNHCR if they wish so in practice? Yes With difficulty No
2. Do asylum seekers in detention centres have effective access to NGOs and UNHCR if they wish so in practice? Yes With difficulty No
3. Do asylum seekers accommodated in remote locations on the territory (excluding borders) have effective access to NGOs and UNHCR if they wish so in practice?
Yes With difficulty No
The list of NGOs accredited to send representatives to access the waiting zones, initially established by order of the Ministry of the Interior in June 2012 for a 3-year period,272 was revised in June 2015.273 It includes 13 organisations, whereas Human Rights Watch has also been accredited as of July 2016:274
Accueil aux médecins et personnels de santé réfugiés en France (APSR);
Amnesty International France;
Association nationale d'assistance aux frontières pour les étrangers (ANAFE);
Cimade;
French Red Cross;
France Terre d'asile;
269 Administrative Court of Appeal of Bordeaux, Decision No 16BX01854, 2 November 2016.
270 Article L.213-2 Ceseda.
271 Article L.221-4 Ceseda.
272 Arrêté du 5 juin 2012 fixant la liste des associations humanitaires habilitées à proposer des représentants en vue d’accéder en zone d’attente, NOR: INTV1222472A, available in French at: http://bit.ly/1NyRmiU.
273 Arrêté du 3 juin 2015 fixant la liste des associations humanitaires habilitées à proposer des représentants en vue d’accéder en zone d’attente, NOR: INTV1511516A, available in French at: http://bit.ly/1FXTpav.
274 Arrêté du 29 juillet 2016 portant habilitation d’une association à proposer des représentants en vue d’accéder en zone d’attente, NOR: INTV1621861A, available in French at: http://bit.ly/2k7FJH6.
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Forum réfugiés-Cosi;
Groupe accueil et solidarité (GAS);
Groupe d'information et de soutien des immigrés (GISTI);
Human Rights Watch
Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (Human Rights League);
Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitié entre les peuples (MRAP);
Médecins du monde (Doctors of the World); and
Ordre de Malte (Order of Malta).
This authorisation is valid until June 2018. It should be noted that Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which was previously authorised under the 2012 order, is no longer included in the list.
I. Differential treatment of specific nationalities in the procedure
Indicators: Treatment of Specific Nationalities
1. Are applications from specific nationalities considered manifestly well-founded? Yes No
If yes, specify which: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Central African Republic
2. Are applications from specific nationalities considered manifestly unfounded?275 Yes No
If yes, specify which: Albania, Armenia, Benin, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cape Verde, Georgia, Ghana, India, FYROM, Kosovo, Mauritius, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Senegal, Serbia
Asylum seekers that are nationals of countries considered to be safe are dealt with most of the time under an accelerated procedure (in 90% of the cases) (see section on Safe Country of Origin).
Furthermore, according to the practical observations of many actors in the field of asylum in France, the processing of asylum claims for people of Rwandan nationality can take a particularly long time.
Until 2014, Syrian asylum seekers did not get any specific treatment in France. Currently, OFPRA’s objective is to process Syrian asylum claims within 3 months. In order to achieve this goal, claims from Syrian nationals are prioritised. Protection was granted by OFPRA to asylum seekers from Syria in 96.9%
of the cases in 2015. This rate is to be compared to the average recognition rate of 23% for all OFPRA decisions.276 According to OFPRA’s 2015 Activity report,277 68.3% of Syrian nationals who were granted protection benefitted from refugee status under the Geneva Convention while 31.7% of them obtained subsidiary protection.
The same treatment is applied to asylum seekers from Iraq. The recognition rate for the Iraqi asylum seekers was 97.9% in 2015. 97.2% of them were granted refugee status. The situation in Iraq easily explains this high rate of protection. The same goes for citizens of the Central African Republic. The rate of recognition is 88.7%. However, most of asylum seekers granted protection are so on the grounds of the subsidiary protection (68.85%). The recent internal troubles occurring in Bangui are the main reasons explaining this rate of protection. Finally, asylum seekers from Yemen are also widely protected (81.6%) such as asylum seekers from Afghanistan (80.3%). Only 70 asylum claims have been submitted by asylum seekers from Yemen. Regarding asylum seekers from Afghanistan, 2,500 claims have been registered but OFPRA took a decision, by the end of December 2015, for only 689 of them. This important backlog may be explained by the priority given to the treatment of Syrian asylum claims; OFPRA took 2,396 decisions in that case for 3,415 claims registered.
275 Whether under the “safe country of origin” concept or otherwise.
276 OFPRA, 2015 Activity report, 13 May 2016, 6.
277 Ibid.